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Panera Bread is launching its “Top Teacher” contest. Metro Detroit students, parents and others can nominate their favorite local K-12 teachers to be honored as the area’s favorite educator.

In addition to rewarding the winning teacher and the person who nominated them, each nomination will trigger a $1 donation to the United Way for Southeastern Michigan’s local summer backpack program for hunger relief.

The winning teacher will receive a Panera Bread breakfast for their classroom, a $200 Panera gift card and $100 in supplies! This comes ever-so-handy at a time when a whopping 97% of teachers dip into their own pockets to purchase necessary supplies, according to the National Teaching Realities Survey, Kelton Research, 2010. The survey also found that in 2009, teachers spent more than $350 on average from their own income on supplies and materials!

Aside from rewarding the winning teacher, the individual who nominated them will be entered to win an E-Reader and $50 Panera Gift Card. Winners will be announced during National Teacher’s Week May 7th – 11th.

For the past seven years, Allan Hill has been caring for (and inhabiting) a rundown building on the site of what was once the Packard plant. "In 20 years, people won't even know of this place," he reflects.

"Young people will say, 'Well, what's a Packard?' At another point they might say, 'What's a Chevrolet?' Or, 'What's a Honda?' You know, at the rate that we're going."

On April 18, 1936, Detroit honored its champion sports teams and heroes by holding Champions Day, a day set aside to commemorate a number of sporting victories by Detroit teams in the early 1930s. The Detroit Historical Society will highlight our region’s more recent sporting accomplishments by holding a re-dedication ceremony to declare April 18, 2012 as City of Champions Day. The event will serve to tell the stories of Detroit’s sports victories beginning in 1935 and continuing today.

“When the Tigers take the World Series, the Lions win the NFL championship, the Pistons earn an NBA title or our Red Wings bring home the Stanley cup, Detroiters come together in a memorable way,” said Bob Bury, executive director and CEO of the Detroit Historical Society. “By rededicating April 18 as City of Champions Day we can share these amazing stories and re-energize the spirit and pride Detroiters have in our city.”

During the 1930s, Detroiters experienced an unprecedented amount of success when the city’s sports teams earned three titles in six months’ time. It began in October 1935 when the Detroit Tigers won their first World Series, and continued in December as the Detroit Lions earned the National Football League crown. The following April the Detroit Red Wings took home the Stanley Cup. It was these team successes, combined with the individual achievements of Detroiters Joe Louis in the boxing ring, sprinter Eddie Tolan on the track and Gar Wood in power boat racing, that led both Michigan Governor Frank Fitzgerald and the Detroit Common Council to declare April 18, 1936 as “Champions Day.” To date, no other city has duplicated such sporting success in the same time span.

The Champions Day event will be hosted inside the Detroit Historical Museum’s Streets of Old Detroit exhibit and will include a rededication ceremony and proclamation from Mayor Dave Bing. In addition, several local sports industry legends will participate in the event, including Mike and Marian Ilitch and Tommy “The Hitman” Hearns, who will preserve their handprints and signatures in cement for Detroit Legends Plaza, an outdoor tribute to Detroit’s legends of sports, music, media and more.

Detroit Legends Plaza is part of the Detroit Historical Society’s Past>Forward campaign, a fundraising effort to raise $20.1 million towards new and expanded exhibits, technology upgrades, educational offerings and enhancements to the Detroit Historical Museum, Dossin Great Lakes Museum and the Detroit Historical Society Collection. The plaza is set to be unveiled in fall 2012.

Those in attendance during the Champions Day event will have an opportunity to view artifacts tied to Detroit’s championship teams, including a wood plaque presented to the city and signed by President Franklin Roosevelt and the governors of the United States in 1936 saluting Detroit as the City of Champions. It will remain on display at the Museum from April 18 – 22.

The Southwest Community has a strong presence of groups willing to collaborate to make Southwest Detroit a secure, healthy place for their kids to grow up. That passion is spreading beyond the borders of working streetlights and providing structured youth activities. Elisandra Figueroa, the president and founder of Detroit Dog Movement, worked to unite groups like Detroit Southwest Pride, Urban Neighborhood Initiative, Congress of Communities, CHAINED, Saving ACE, Dog Aide 2012 and All About Animals Rescue to come together to promote responsible pet ownership in an effort to reduce the dangers that stray and free roaming dogs pose.

“We have too many dogs, plain and simple”, Figueroa says. “The majority of dogs aren’t fixed so not only are they breeding, but they have the urge to roam and are getting lost. Males smell a female in heat and next thing you know your dogs a mile away, lost. The kids are scared, the dogs are scared; it’s a safety issue affecting the whole community. Too many dogs end up in shelters and are euthanized. We can prevent all of this through spay and neuter.”

All About Animals Rescue based in Warren, is the largest high volume, low cost spay neuter clinic in Michigan. They’ve worked with Figueroa for nearly a year and when they purchased their new mobile on-board spay/neuter surgery vehicle, one of only three vans in the state, Figueroa knew she wanted her community to benefit. Figueroa and Jessica Ramirez, a volunteer with Detroit Dog Movement, brought the community organizations together for an introductory meeting and now history is being made in Southwest Detroit. The surgical van will hold multiple spay days throughout the year in Southwest touching the lives of pet owners who can’t or won’t take their pets to a clinic.

To kick off the mission of no more homeless pets, All About Animals is sterilizing cats, Pit Bulls and Pit Mixes for free during the mobile van’s first week of operation, April 17 through April 21. The event is hosted by Azteca Supermercado, 2411 Central Detroit, MI 48209. Pet owners can schedule surgery by calling All About Animals at 586-879-1745.

Hatch Detroit announced today it will partner with Comerica Bank for the
Comerica Hatch Detroit Contest, the nonprofit's second annual retail business competition. The bank
will be the presenting sponsor of the contest, providing the full prize amount of $50,000 for the winning
business idea and a significant amount of inkind support to further Hatch Detroit's efforts to help
entrepreneurs in Detroit.

"We founded Hatch Detroit on the premise that vibrant and diverse retail is the lifeblood of a thriving
urban community," said Nick Gorga, co-founder of Hatch Detroit. "With Comerica's sponsorship, we are
thrilled to bring together the energy and passion of the city's grassroots organizations with the breadth
and strength of one of the city's venerable companies to help support, promote and fund the amazing
ideas percolating in our city."

Hatch Detroit launched in 2011 with overwhelming success. The inaugural contest garnered hundreds of
Detroit retail business ideas and ignited tremendous community support for the 10 semifinalists,
culminating in thousands of public votes cast for the winning idea. Last year's winner Hugh, a home
furnishings shop featuring classic bachelor pad style, received $50,000, in addition to a suite of donated
services from individuals and companies to help the shop "hatch" and thrive. Hugh will open for
business in fall 2012.

This year, the Comerica Hatch Detroit Contest is set to be bigger and better than last year with even
more of a local impact. More than simply a competition with one winner, the effort will delve into the
community to provide resources to small business owners and serve to inspire entrepreneurship in the
region.

"Comerica is committed to the City of Detroit and to supporting the small businesses that are a driving
force in MichiganAs economy," said Thomas D. Ogden, pressident, Comerica Bank Michigan. "As a bank
that has a stake in the future of our region, we are proud to make this investment in Hatch Detroit, and
in the city and communities we serve." Hatch Detroit expects to begin accepting applications for the Comerica Hatch Detroit Contest on June 1, 2012. Further details will be announced at a later date.

Governor Snyder is pushing for a plan that would turn Detroit’s Belle Isle into a state park.

Detroit and the state have signed a consent agreement that, among other things, lays out broad plans to restructure the city.

One of those listed: a plan for the city to lease Belle Isle to the state. The state’s Park Endowment fund would then pick up the maintenance costs.

“So we could actually do improvements on Belle Isle, have it available for the citizens of Detroit and the citizens of Michigan, and then free up dollar resources that are now going currently going to Belle Isle that could help the neighborhoods," Snyder said this week.

The Governor said state officials are trying to launch "a dialogue" with the Detroit City Council and Mayor’s office about the plan. But he basically told the Detroit City Council and mayor’s office to get moving on the issue.

“I hope that could be one of the faster ones [in the consent agreement] we could process, in terms of figuring out how to do that," Snyder said.

The idea of turning over control of Belle Isle is a politically touchy one in Detroit.

Snyder emphasized the city would continue to own the island. But at some point, a state park entrance fee would come into effect.

Several Detroit non-profits want to help potential small business owners get some much needed capital.

They’ve launched a microlending website called Kiva Detroit, an extension of the California-based Kiva.org. Small business owners post their idea online and anyone can give a loan for as little as $25. The site went live this Wednesday.

Delphia Simmons wanted to start a ‘street newspaper’ for the city of Detroit. Instead of turning to a bank for a loan, she used the new website to get a $1,000 loan. She says the money will go toward the first printing, which she expects will cost around $950. Simmons says that will give her "about 5,000 papers to start with."

Simmons will distribute the paper, called Thrive Detroit, to the city's homeless for 25 cents each, who will then sell the papers to the public for $1. She plans to launch the newspaper in August.

The Knight Foundation, one of the nonprofits behind Kiva Detroit, contributed $250,000 to match all grants made on the website. The other groups involved in the new site are Michigan Corps, ACCION USA, and California-based Kiva.org.

Quicken Loans and two affiliated Detroit venture capital firms have issued a call for the roughly 2,000 Yahoo employees who received pink slips last week to move to the Motor City to bolster the blighted city's efforts at revitalization.

The companies claim that Detroit is experiencing a tech boom, pointing to Twitter's recent decision to open an office in Detroit, primarily to sell advertising to the automotive industry. Twitter will rent space in the M@dison Building, a converted theater that now bills itself as a tech incubator.

Josh Linkner, the CEO of Detroit Venture Partners, said there are 300 to 500 open tech jobs at Quicken Loans and other companies backed by his venture capital firm and Rockbridge Growth Equity, an equity firm run by Quicken CEO and Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert. Detroit Venture partners has put up a website called Valley to Detroit to support its efforts to bring Yahoo talent to the Motor City.

Linkner said that demand for tech employees in Detroit currently outpaces supply. Denise Lidell, the CEO of High-Tech Professionals, a staffing company, agreed.

Linkner suggested that Detroit's latest effort to diversify its economy is in keeping with the city's history.

"A hundred years ago, Detroit was the Silicon Valley of the day. This is where people from all around the world, the best and the brightest, came to launch their entrepreneurial businesses and to build incredible technology of the day," he said.

President Barack Obama is coming to the Motor City for a $1 million pizza party being thrown for him compliments of Denise Ilitch, daughter of Little Caesars’ founders Mike and Marian Ilitch.

Ilitch is opening her home April 18 for the fundraiser where movers and shakers are being asked to pony up thousands to add to his re-election coffer while getting a chance to rub shoulders with the most powerful man on the planet.

“I’m honored to have been asked,” by the Obama campaign to host,” Ilitch said of the event she and husband, Jim Scalici, will hold at their Metro Detroit home. She made the comments on “Michigan Matters” when asked about media reports.

In its 41st year, Pewabic Pottery’s annual Staff and Student Exhibition showcases the artistic diversity of Pewabic’s students and staff. The exhibit will feature some of the area’s homegrown talent in a one-of-a-kind display. The show will be free and open to the public now through June 10.

The show will highlight the creative range of skills within Pewabic Pottery, represented in a variety of mediums, including drawing, painting, fiber, and of course, ceramics.

Pewabic will also host a special opening reception on April 13 from 6 – 8 p.m. where guests can enjoy drinks and light snacks while enjoying the exhibit.

This exhibit was generously funded by the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, the National Endowment for the Arts and the City of Detroit Recreation Department.

Pewabic Pottery is a non-profit arts and cultural organization and National Historic Landmark which is dedicated to engaging people of all ages in learning experiences with contemporary ceramic art and artists while preserving its historic legacy.

Pewabic is a historic working pottery which is open to the public year round and offers classes, workshops and tours to children and adults. Pewabic creates giftware, pottery and architectural tile, showcases more than 80 ceramic artists in its galleries, and operates a museum store that features pottery and gift tile made on-site. Visitors are welcome, free of charge, Monday - Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. To learn more about Pewabic Pottery call (313) 626-2000 or visit www.pewabic.org. Pewabic Pottery is located at 10125 E. Jefferson Ave. in Detroit across the street from Waterworks Park.

Just about every U.S. city has its legendary steak place, but Michael Symon’s Roast in Detroit is the one that sizzles in our dreams.

The restaurant is located inside the Westin Book Cadillac Detroit hotel, but executive chef Andy Hollyday says don’t be intimidated by the valet or linen. Waiters here wear jeans and the loose, happy-hour vibe at the bar sets the tone for the restaurant.

Hollyday’s favorite is the 450-gram house-aged rib-eye, aged for three weeks, then grilled over hardwood charcoal and topped with a marinade of orange juice, balsamic vinegar, olive oil and roasted blue cheese.